Life Feels Better When You Stop Creating Work That Feels Like Work
Mark Masters
I help people and businesses build their audience, that can then grow into their community. I’m also your Thursday AM paperboy ??
When there is a sense of realness to your content, there still has to be that element of fun.
If you are controlling the distribution of your message, you have to make it accessible and enjoyable for others.
Creating content that feels like creating content, means you forever sit in the middle. People like things they don’t get somewhere else.
However, creating work that feels like work is what people do. It is what we have been doing for generations so that we fit in. We have done it because we think it makes our business (or what we do) look more attractive than someone else.
It’s the blog pages and social post themes you see every day:
- It’s the clients won
- It’s the new team member
- It’s the articles that you can read everywhere else ie. the importance of branding, what time to tweet, the future is AI
- It’s the work or side project that starts with gusto and then just fizzles out
- It’s the work that provides no angle or viewpoint
- It’s the wise words and dressing it up on Instagram. Simon Sinek is the king of this.
What these all represent is the indulgence of someone else and not the person standing in front of them.
It Doesn’t Work Like It Did
People are overly optimistic that just because they can create a piece of content, people will want to work with them. It just doesn’t work like that.
What used to be seen as paying for a 1/2 page ad and doing it over a period of a few months in the blind hope of some form of return (or ROI), just doesn’t work anymore.
So, what is the answer?
It has to be about benefiting people that you create something they can’t get elsewhere.
It is about going to the edges to reach the audience you seek to reach and make it worthwhile.
When the audience you reach also acknowledges that you enjoyed the process of creating, this makes it easier to repeat.
As Margaret Magnarelli, who headed over from the US to talk at this summers You Are The Media Conference said, “You still need to have fun, interesting content that speaks to your brand’s values. After all, just as with B2C you’re ultimately talking to another human. And since you’re talking to them about work, you’ll get a lot more traction if you can make it feel like it’s not added work to consume.”
Winning It Back
The interactions with others is key.
There is no place for the person who sits on their throne telling others how to behave, the distance only becomes out of reach. A survey (July 2018) conducted by Harris Interactive, on behalf of ModSquad, highlighted that from a population of 1,050 respondents, over 60% are unsure of or less sure than they were five years ago of their trust in brands today.
This presents an opportunity, by winning trust back by expressing yourself better than others.
This about creating content that feels warmer, different and feels enjoyable to produce. The marketplace you operate within has more voices talking to more people. This is the centre of the problem.
Work doesn’t feel like work (the writing, the video, the audio) when there is an independent voice created that people want to read/watch/listen.
You are now the distributor and the ideas you create are the ideas that can be spread by others, that is a fantastic place for us to be in.
The responsibility you have is not to play the same game as everyone else, but to bring your own quirks and angle of attack.
Let everyone else have their moment in the sun when it comes to their client wins and calling it ‘news’. It only means something to them, so let them indulge in it in their own sandpit.
What Can You Do?
As Matt Desmier says, “If you’ve become too comfortable with something, so has your audience and now you’re not pushing yourself or them. And you might not know you’re in that comfort zone, but if everyone else is copying you – you’re comfortable.”
Creating work that doesn’t feel a chore and the whole experience becomes enjoyable for you and your audience (because they don’t get this feeling elsewhere), doesn’t come with a straight answer.
Here are some lessons I have taken on board over the years that have helped me build a relatable audience.
- What feels uncomfortable, share it (read this article, if it’s not worth writing, it’s not worth sharing).
- It is ok to be self-depreciating (people seem to enjoy this angle on my Instagram, rather than a sunset over a beach, as everyone else does that).
- If the world is full of the same format ie. a news page on a website that talks about client wins, it becomes the mainstream and more difficult to stand above everyone else.
- Show your work and what went into something so that another person can take something useful away, that they may not have been aware of.
- Talk and share the experiences that have a wider learning (and align with what you do). I always say it, but talking about my business when it was on its knees in 2010/2011 when a client went bust has attracted more attention than anything else. This was more about being open than a ‘why you need to fail fast’ parable.
- Don’t treat everything as a last minute exercise ie. if you say you will produce one article per month, don’t start it on the last day of the month, it becomes a rushed mess.
- Recognise what is the simplest message to create. It shouldn’t be about making yourself look important but the easiest hook for someone else to say ‘I get it.’ That way it becomes easier to interpret.
- You stand by what you distribute, it becomes easier for people to associate.
Let’s Round Up
Most people and businesses are happy to reside in the middle. This is the place where we have all behaved the same way for many years. The chest beating and the self-centred mantra of appreciation have become far easier when there are places to distribute from.
As our lives get more complex, people are looking to simplify it, which is why we cling to brands such as Amazon, Dropbox, Airbnb and Mailchimp.
By making things simple and done in a way where the effort felt good, becomes an ecosystem that people gravitate to.
Your audience doesn’t want to engage with a whole host of companies, they want to connect to those where there is a shared sense of belonging and is done in an organic, not pressured way.
Everything you create and distribute it done to attract people who find something they can’t get elsewhere. It’s a great feeling when people want to stick around.
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Washington DC's brand representative for premium restaurant and hospitality products. And some darn good USDA prime dry-aged steaks
5 年This article resonates?with me. There is a ton of pressure to always measure the outcome of every interaction on social media. Every single time you post needs to result in mass interactions and a windfall of leads; otherwise, you are wasting time. I value, and the interactions that I have with people, and sometimes I learn something new. Meeting new people with diverse backgrounds is how I grow.?
Speak Truth to Power
5 年I have never created content in my life. Writing articles? Different story. I had something to say and am about to enter my sixth year of saying it. A woman got really mad at me when I said the name "Simon Sinek" sounds like a James Bond villain. I found my why. It was in the pocket of a jacket I hadn't worn since last fall. I once found a ten dollar bill like that. What a nice surprise.
Visual Communicator: I create images that humanize brands and distinguish them from competitors. You have to get noticed before you can gain someone's trust.
5 年"(When you create content), you’re ultimately talking to another human. And since you’re talking to them about work, you’ll get a lot more traction if you can make it feel like it’s not added work to consume.” Excellent. We create content that's hard to consume because we think it makes us look smart-- what good is that if our audience says, "Spare me--!" and clicks away?